TIKTOK RETURNS

(UPDATE) After going dark for less than a day, TikTok is returning to your favorite devices. Following assurances from President-elect Trump, who is due to take the oath of office tomorrow (1/20), the social-video platform came back online, though reports are varied about how quickly people have been able to log back on.

"We thank President [sic] Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive," reads a post on X by the company's "policy" account, which also called the development "a strong stand for the First Amendment against arbitrary censorship."

In related news, unlike TikTok, irony is gone for good.

The court-ordered TikTok ban took effect Sunday (1/19), leaving more than 170m users in the dark. Anyone in the U.S. trying to access the app is greeted with a message that reads: "A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!”

Trump, meanwhile, took to Truth Social with a plan to save TikTok as soon as he's sworn in on Monday (1/20), promising to issue an executive order to "extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security."

He added, "I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture. By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to say up. Without U.S. approval, there is no Tik Tok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars - maybe trillions."

In the interim, TikTok users are flocking to apps like RedNote, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and Clapper to get their fix.

President-elect Donald Trump says he will “most likely” put a 90-day pause on the court-ordered ban of TikTok, which is scheduled to take effect on Sunday (1/19), one day before his inauguration.

Trump, who signed executive orders to ban TikTok during his first administration, told NBC’s Kristen Welker “I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at. The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It’s a very big situation.”

The option for a 90-day extension is written into the law, which was unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court, but TikTok may still go dark for one day until Trump declares a pause.

The Biden administration has said it does not intend to enforce the law in its final hours, and has called TikTok’s threat to go dark “a stunt.”